Please take care of the egg

There is a wonderful saying in Japanese, 「卵です」 - literally, 'I am an egg'.

What it really means is that you are a something-in-the-making, or a budding something. I like the idea of an egg, though. It's full of potential, and has a future ahead of it if it can break out of its shell. It also implies a certain degree of fragility and a need for careful handling, which anyone who's ever been a beginner at something will have a degree of painful sympathy with.

My computer upgrade has had most of its kinks worked out and I now have a much more powerful machine, a new OS, two screens and a larger desk to help me work. The only thing that needs to be improved now is me, as I venture into a new subject area - patents - which is very different from my previous specialisms, games and correspondence. The terminology is of course different, but so many other things are as well, the degree of accuracy to the source text, the prescribed language in English, and the complexity of the writing in Japanese. I've completely changed how I work, including spending more time reading and revising on paper.

We'll see what hatches.